Forced into Marriage, Part Three

The ringing of a phone dragged Choi Seonggi out of sleep.

At the sound of her name he shot upright as if lightning had struck him.

That was the end of it. The line was dead. He still had no idea what was happening, but he decided to do exactly as Cha Jiyeon said. There was hardly anything that qualified as luggage anyway — the Brioni suit and Testoni shoes they'd brought him the day before, at most. Whoever had outfitted him had been too cheap to throw in a Patek Philippe.

Seonggi washed his face in a hurry, pulled on his clothes, and gathered his things. The phone rang again the moment he finished.

They had to be the people Jiyeon had sent. He went straight down and found a van waiting with the door already open. The moment he climbed in, the door shut and they pulled away.

Before they cleared the neighborhood, Seonggi looked back toward the gosiwon. A van and several sedans drew up in front of the cramped boarding house where he'd been staying, and men in black suits spilled out in a rush.

"Any later and we'd have been in real trouble."

The man behind the wheel muttered it, almost to himself.

"Who are those people? Why are they after me..."

"They're from Chairman Cha Jinpyo's personal secretariat. They stop at nothing — there's no job they won't take, clean or dirty. If you'd fallen into their hands... I couldn't tell you what would have happened. Ah, I haven't introduced myself. I'm Na Dohyung. I serve former Chairman Cha Wonseok."

"Please, call me Terry Park. I'm the second young lady's bodyguard."

The answer came from the man in the driver's seat.

"Ah... yes. I'm Choi Seonggi."

He couldn't begin to grasp what was unfolding.

"Where are we going?"

"Somewhere safe."

"What on earth is going on..."

"I hardly know what to say. We were on full emergency all night, and you're this relaxed? Ha. Honestly."

"You didn't see the news? The whole country is upside down because of you. Ha."

At Na Dohyung's and Terry Park's words, Seonggi pulled out his phone and searched.

Every online front page was plastered with news of Cha Jiyeon's secret wedding.

He tapped the link. Up came a photo of him and Cha Jiyeon, both of them laughing out loud. His face had been mosaicked, but not enough to defeat a decent look at it; hers hadn't been mosaicked at all. From the picture alone, the two of them looked so natural it was easy to believe they'd been in love for years.

It was the shot from the moment the absurdity of marrying a man whose name he didn't even know had hit them both, and the laughter had burst out together. Scrolling farther, he found coverage of Jiyeon gathering reporters to announce that she was married — marriage certificate held up for the cameras, the resident registration numbers blacked out.

"Ah..."

Only then did he understand what was happening. While he'd been asleep, the world had turned itself inside out.

"Yesterday was absolute chaos. All of Gwangmyeong Group was flipped on its head. No... it'd be closer to say the whole country was in an uproar."

The moment the notarization had been finished at the law office yesterday, the marriage had been registered — and Jiyeon had called the reporters in and announced it herself.

The comments under the articles told him just how many people had been knocked flat.

Most of them were probably men in their twenties and thirties, and the comment section was buried under groans and resentment. Somehow, he thought he knew exactly how they felt. He'd lost Oh Sunyoung after five years together, after all. In the end she'd gone and married that doctor bastard... She was probably living just fine.

"There's somewhere we need to stop before the safe house."

Na ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠Dohyung's voice snapped him back to himself.

"Where are we stopping?"

"The old gentleman is waiting."

"The old gentleman...?"

"Former Chairman Cha Wonseok."

"Ah..."

Fear dropped through him, cold and sudden. Former Chairman Cha Wonseok — the founding chairman who had raised Gwangmyeong Group from nothing, wasn't he? Jiyeon's grandfather. The very man who had driven her to do something this outrageous.

It felt like booting up a game and walking straight into the final boss. Show even a hairline crack here, and it was all over. He hadn't even been paid the seven hundred million yet. Ah — they could have at least let him collect the money before dragging him to this.

"Please don't worry too much."

Na Dohyung read his face and said it with a smile.

Don't worry? How was he supposed to not worry? Final boss, right at the start of the game...

"Sit."

Chairman Cha Wonseok spoke only after everyone else had been sent out. He sat in a wheelchair with an IV line in his arm — a gaunt face flecked with age spots, and on arms so thin the bone showed through, veins stood out blue-black.

Seonggi, who had been standing with his head bowed, took the chair opposite the wheelchair and sat with both hands gathered neatly on his knees.

"No need to be so tense."

"Ah... yes..."

Hadn't they said he was around ninety this year? People spoke as if he might not last the day, and yet he looked hardier than Seonggi had imagined. Cha Wonseok's gray-tinged eyes drifted, briefly and idly, across the view beyond the living-room window, then came back to him.

"It's pu'er. Drink at your ease."

"Yes, sir..."

He lifted the cup from the table and drank, but there was no room in him to taste it. Chairman Cha Wonseok was staring straight through him. Every breath, every motion of raising the cup, every flick of his eyes — all of it seemed to be under a scan. The old man had to be wondering what stray mongrel had run off with his youngest granddaughter.

"Why did you handle it this way?"

The sudden wedding announcement, most likely.

"Well... Jiyeon was in such a hurry... and my parents aren't in the best of health either..."

Even Seonggi, who could keep his brazenness steady through almost anything, had no choice but to step carefully in front of Chairman Cha Wonseok. An old lion who had lived close to a hundred years and shaken the country as he pleased. Seonggi hated that he had to lie to him now. But seven hundred million won was desperate enough, for him, to outweigh every risk.

Chairman Cha Wonseok said nothing more. He looked out the window again. Between branches thick with fresh green leaves, small birds threaded in and out. The sound was tiny, but the room was so still that their chatter carried through the glass. Cheep-cheep... pip-pip... peet.

"Do you love Jiyeon?"

Cha Wonseok's face was sallow and pale, a sick man's face. He spoke again with no expression at all.

"Yes... I love her very much."

The chairman, who had been studying him without a word, opened his mouth once more.

"What?"

Seonggi's eyes flew wide, as if they might start out of his head.

"Then it's the money?"

Thud. Thud. Thud. His heartbeat thundered inside his skull. The Chairman Cha Wonseok in front of him looked as if he would catch a lie no matter what Seonggi said.

"I— no. It isn't."

In that instant the chairman's eyes drew thin.

"Do you take me for a fool?"

"N-no, of course not. I've always respected you, Chairman."

One corner of Cha ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠Wonseok's mouth curled.

"You're a poor liar."

"Th-that's..."

"Enough."

This was Choi Seonggi, a man who wouldn't so much as twitch an eyebrow at most things — overconfident, and shameless on top of it. For the first time since he'd graduated high school, his face had gone red. A living legend with more than sixty years in management alone. An old-timer among old-timers. The very idea of trying to deceive a man like this was absurd. Standing before Cha Wonseok, Seonggi felt stripped bare, not a thread left on him. The old man seemed to see through every last part of him.

But he could hardly admit, now, that the wedding was fake.

"I'll give it..."

At those words, Cha Wonseok's gaze left the window and returned to him.

"...everything I have."

The chairman looked at him quietly for a moment, and a deep sigh slipped out.

"Haaah..."

With the sigh, his eyes turned toward the window again.

"Yes... you never really know, with the world..."

He murmured it to the glass.

"In any case, take good care of our Jiyeon."

"Yes, sir."

He said it only because there was no way not to answer.

"She may look cold on the outside, but that child is warmer inside than anyone..."

Seonggi had nothing to say to that. The eyes that had been sharp as a blade, for a while, had gone soft.

"You may go... Nabi!"

Nabi? The moment Cha Wonseok called, Secretary Na Dohyung opened the door and came in. It seemed they shortened his name to Nabi because he was Secretary Na.

"See our guest out."

"Yes, Chairman!"

"Madam Go!"

This time a door on the other side opened, and a broad, sturdy woman appeared.

"Didn't I tell you to ring the bell? A man who can barely breathe, and still..."

Seonggi rose and bent a full ninety degrees toward Cha Wonseok. The woman wheeled the chair out, and Secretary Na Dohyung looked at Seonggi.

"Let's go."

They left him at a quiet mansion in Yangpyeong and turned back. Two business cards rested in Seonggi's hand.

"What the hell is all this?"

Everything that had just happened felt like a dream. Wake up, get hauled off somewhere to meet Chairman Cha Wonseok — a living legend — and then arrive at a mansion they called a safe house.

He unlocked the door with the key Na Dohyung had given him and stepped inside.

"Holy shit..."

The living room was wide, finished in warm wood, and carefully put together. He kicked off his shoes and went in to look the place over. A kitchen with a dining table big enough for ten, a cozy sofa facing a television that had to be well past two hundred inches, and four bedrooms, every one of them with its own bath.

Two enormous refrigerators were packed with frozen food and fresh. The storeroom held whiskey and wine, cheese and jamón, dried meats and fish. If they told him to live here, he could have managed a year.

A notification chimed. He opened his phone.

The text was from Cha Jiyeon. Seonggi hurried into his online banking and checked the account.

An impossible number sat on the screen. Adrenaline surged. Now he could pay off his debts and live like a human being.

He went to the storeroom, came back with a bottle of champagne and some cheese, and — though there was no one else there — decided he wanted to celebrate escaping the debt collectors. He lifted the flute.

"Cheers!"

He tipped it into his mouth.

Wait. Was he really going to spend all of this on nothing but the debt? Seven hundred million. Seven hundred million won! His head cleared at a stroke. At ten percent, seven hundred million earned him seventy million won. Turn it properly, build his seed money first, and pay the debt afterward — why not?

The moment the thought landed, the coins he'd been watching while he sprawled around that gosiwon room came flooding back. Lose this money too, and it really would be the end... For a moment the hand holding his phone began to shake.

They'd said that when the job was finished, he'd get a billion won later.

The struggle didn't last. Seonggi started pouring every last won into crypto without hesitation, splitting the bets into five tiers from the riskiest down to the safe. Three hundred million went into the highest-risk play, and one hundred million each into the other four coins. Just as President Jo Jintae of Big Coin Company had said — life was one clean shot. Having run this far, was he going to flinch now and play it safe? Wasn't the world too savage, too wildly changeable, for a life like that?

Even if he lost every won, he wouldn't regret it. He wasn't sure that was true. He decided to believe it anyway.

And that was the moment. Into the living room of a mansion set off from the road, with nothing else nearby, a hard white light came pouring. Headlights. Someone was driving straight for the house.

What do I do?

Instinct warned him that this was danger. He killed the lights, locked the front door, and slipped quietly into the storeroom to hide.